Ramblings of life long Ford man

[RCC]

Our fathers may have crossed paths mikkelstuff. Mine went ashore at Utah beach on D-Day and fought his way to Berlin. Good soldier, terrible mechanic.
I maintained all his vehicles until left home to enlist in USMC. Old dogface MSgt was bummed I didn't go Army but got over it eventually....

 

[superj]

My brother had a 68 in high school, seemed pretty easy to work on to me.

A little wire clip thing broke in the clutch, I think it was for the throw out bearing. It was like half an hour to drop the engine the first time. Stupid thing ran on air and was like driving a gocart.

However... you had to accept the fact that you will have no heat and no defrost.

mine never broke the clip holding the throw out bearing on but my throttle cable broke regularly enough i kept two spares in the boot.

if you guys had no heat, you were missing the hoses that hook to the exhaust. mine had such good heat that driving with the windows down was no problem. you had to drive with one down though because the exhaust fumes always came through the heater vents but it was so much heat, i was sweating

 

[RobbieD]

I always sweated driving the one bug I had, but it was because the brakes were so bad.

I did a lot of unintentional off roading in that one . . .

 

[RCC]

Back in 80s, friend built trail rail outta 64 Beatle floor pan, front/rear suspension and 1½" cold steel pipe. Ran homemade pipe open headers and beer keg gas tank. No battery, just push and play....

 

[superj]

I always sweated driving the one bug I had, but it was because the brakes were so bad.

I did a lot of unintentional off roading in that one . . .

i was lucky because 70 was the first year of disk brakes on the karmann ghias. i don't know if beetles or super beetles got disk brakes before 80 and i think those would have been mexican beetles by than. i think my beetles were drum brakes front and rear, though i could just not be remembering correctly

 

[RobbieD]

i was lucky because 70 was the first year of disk brakes on the karmann ghias. i don't know if beetles or super beetles got disk brakes before 80 and i think those would have been mexican beetles by than. i think my beetles were drum brakes front and rear, though i could just not be remembering correctly

I had a '64; those had "maybe" brakes.

 

[RCC]

You ain't lying RobbieD.
64 beatle drum brakes were not built for off-road. Flipping kill switch in first gear was most reliable way to stop trail rail....

 

[RCC]

Campmobile has at least 3x more interior space than Beatle. Took long time to warm up. Installed 12v electric heater under dash to break chill on short drives.

 

[RCC]

All the VW chitchat made me long to see old 66 Campmobile. Found identical one on internet.

 

[superj]

i just have some pics from back in the day of mine. i will have to find them and post one or two

 

[RCC]

Had ton of fun in beetle bus camper....

 

[RCC]

Best looking Vdub of all was Carmen Ghia. Never got to drive one but heard it's sporty little car. When Ghias was still made I read article about guy putting Porsche motor and transaxle in his.
Said it was "poor man's 911".